Signing up for Obamacare has become a part-time job for Susan Lane .

Starting the minute healthcare.gov went live October 1 , Lane spent five to six hours a day trying to make the site work before she finally managed to enroll two weeks later .

She faced error messages and blank screens . The green twirly `` please wait '' circle literally haunted her dreams .

`` There were days that I would just completely lose my temper with it , '' she remembers . `` I 'd want to just slam my laptop down . ''

But Lane kept with it because she needs insurance -- badly . She suffers from depression , sleep apnea and thyroid problems , and her daughter has Asperger 's syndrome .

She was `` immediately relieved '' when she signed up on healthcare.gov because before Obamacare , no insurance companies would take them with their pre-existing conditions . Their medical bills totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars and ate up the family 's life savings , and the Lanes declared bankruptcy earlier this year .

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`` I wanted the coverage , and I was bound and determined to get it , '' Lane said from her Florida home .

But will everyone else -- especially healthy people -- be determined enough to stick with healthcare.gov ? Will they spend five hours a day trying to make a website work when they are n't motivated by mounting medical bills ?

Obama administration officials have said they need about 2.7 million young , healthy people to sign up -- and that they fully expect them to join at the very last minute .

Without those healthy people , Obamacare could be in trouble , since an insurance pool only works well when healthy people , who pay premiums but use few services , are in it to help offset the costs of people like Lane and her daughter .

`` It 's incredibly important to have young people in the -LRB- insurance -RRB- exchanges in the long term , '' said Caroline Pearson , a vice president at Avalere Health , a healthcare strategy group . `` And the glitches on the website do n't help the situation at all . ''

Eventually -- hopefully -- healthcare.gov will become a workable site . But some worry that even then , the website will have been branded as problematic and time-consuming , and some healthy people will prefer to pay the fine for being uninsured , which in many cases is significantly lower than the cost of buying insurance .

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`` Is that perception of this flawed website going to stick with the public , or is it something that can be gotten over ? '' asked Michael Perry , a partner at PerryUndem , which does surveying and marketing to young people about health care . `` If it sticks , that 's going to be a problem . ''

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Susan Lane made it her mission to sign up on healthcare.gov

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Lane and her family badly needed insurance

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But will young , healthy people go to such trouble ?